You need someone credible in between the pipes if you want to win a Cup. I, however, don't believe that player needs to be particularly great, just consistent enough to be a starter. I've remained consistent on that point of emphasis as well.

Honestly, you lie more than a politician. I kind of wish you would stop.

It is if his teammates are allowed to push the pitcher to make throws from various parts of the field/get in the way of pitches.

Come now, Chris, you're being cute because you have no actual basis for your opinion other than you thought it up and put it out there. What % of ownership over SVPCT would a goalie need before it became a "goalie" stat and not a "team" stat?

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I don't know anything about how the mechanics of a batting order effect batting averages. It shouldn't matter.

If you have Barry Bonds in his steroid prime hitting behind you, you're getting a fastball grooved down the middle to you with a 3 ball count. There's a reason everyone should expect a bit less from Jayson Werth in DC than what he did up here.

Come now, Chris, you're being cute because you have no actual basis for your opinion other than you thought it up and put it out there. What % of ownership over SVPCT would a goalie need before it became a "goalie" stat and not a "team" stat?

If you don't think a stronger defense helps a goaltender by making many shots easier to save then you're more insane than I thought.

If you don't think a stronger defense helps a goaltender by making many shots easier to save then you're more insane than I thought.

I think a stronger defense has a demonstrable impact on GAA.

It does not have a big impact on SVPCT.

Brian Boucher played MUCH better this year than he did last year. He wasn't getting beat on first shots nearly as much as he did in his sporadic starts a season ago, and thus his numbers rose. When he started to falter and get beat on first shots again, his number plummeted... without much changing in front of him. Hell, game to game you saw it happening in the Buffalo series.

You're assumption is that better team defense alters the the set of shots that a goalie faces (which impact his SVPCT). Lets do some rough math for you to think about, and then you can get back to me.

1) This explains why there's a great deal of consistency in goalie's SVPCT over their careers (outside of normal statistical noise).

2) This explains why improved team defense equates to improved GAA so smoothly (assuming goalie play remains the same).

3) This explains why goalie play can have such a heavy impact on a team independent of any other changes you might make.

Here's why all of that works out. Team defense has a significant impact on the shots a goalie faces... across the board. As team defense improves, it doesn't just cut down on difficult chances for the goalie, it cuts down on medium and easy chances as well. So, sure, the goalie doesn't get however many difficult chances he would have had previously, but he's also making less easy and medium saves, too.

Now, folks have attempted to quantify this stuff, but it always runs into problems. For example, how do you look at a shot chart and figure out if there was a screen set up, or a chance for a deflection, etc. with a shot attempt on goal? Not so simple without a level of detail stats will never grant us. It would be interesting to see how uniform the distribution of shots is from team to team if we were to really break it down. Another factor is opponents, does goalie X play against teams with weaker finishers more often (this would help his SVPCT some).

What's important, though, is that it's pretty easy to formulate abstracts that cause problems for our belief that team defense necessarily improves a goalie's chance at having an easier set of shots to make saves on.

In fact, I could make the argument that team defense may actually make it more difficult for the goalie (I don't buy it, but you could make it). Say, for example, you have a team that excels at blocking shots. They're going to block a lot more "easy" saves than they are "hard" saves, thus increasing the difficulty of the set of the shots the goalie is making saves on. This is likely one reason you see arguments that it's easier for goalies to post high SVPCT numbers when they face lots of shots.

I think a lot of you guys are dreaming if you think Vokoun is going for anything less than 5+ mil. He's consistently been an elite goaltender in Florida and he's going to be looking for big money as this could be his last fat contract.

In my opinion Bob is the future of this team and the Flyers should be looking for a veteran to play 35-45 games on a one or two year deal.

Realistically and this is going to get me some heat, I'd look into someone like Khabibulin. A vet Russian goalie who's been everywhere, done everything, and backstopped a Stanley Cup team. Plus I'd imagine he could be picked up on the cheap from Edmonton. He'd be a great 1B for Bob assuming he's a good locker room guy.

And taking a quick glance there's a few prominent vet goalies hitting the market that could play this role. Giguere, Roloson, Nabokov, and Theodore most notably.

Bryzgalov is the best option but Vokoun makes the most sense. If it's a trade route Lindback and Schneider are the best options. But really do we hinder the growth of Bobrovsky by trading. It will be a free agent or an elder goalie like Nabokov that come here or on a smaller scale move of Vokoun being signed.

Bryzgalov is the best option but Vokoun makes the most sense. If it's a trade route Lindback and Schneider are the best options. But really do we hinder the growth of Bobrovsky by trading. It will be a free agent or an elder goalie like Nabokov that come here or on a smaller scale move of Vokoun being signed.

This is a pretty good summary, but if we do sign Vokoun or Bryz, your gonna let Bobrovsky play 30+ games after signing a goalie for 4 million plus?

I think the best route is trading for Schneider, I don't want to overpay for a goalie.

Brian Boucher played MUCH better this year than he did last year. He wasn't getting beat on first shots nearly as much as he did in his sporadic starts a season ago, and thus his numbers rose. When he started to falter and get beat on first shots again, his number plummeted... without much changing in front of him. Hell, game to game you saw it happening in the Buffalo series.

You're assumption is that better team defense alters the the set of shots that a goalie faces (which impact his SVPCT). Lets do some rough math for you to think about, and then you can get back to me.

1) This explains why there's a great deal of consistency in goalie's SVPCT over their careers (outside of normal statistical noise).

2) This explains why improved team defense equates to improved GAA so smoothly (assuming goalie play remains the same).

3) This explains why goalie play can have such a heavy impact on a team independent of any other changes you might make.

Here's why all of that works out. Team defense has a significant impact on the shots a goalie faces... across the board. As team defense improves, it doesn't just cut down on difficult chances for the goalie, it cuts down on medium and easy chances as well. So, sure, the goalie doesn't get however many difficult chances he would have had previously, but he's also making less easy and medium saves, too.

Now, folks have attempted to quantify this stuff, but it always runs into problems. For example, how do you look at a shot chart and figure out if there was a screen set up, or a chance for a deflection, etc. with a shot attempt on goal? Not so simple without a level of detail stats will never grant us. It would be interesting to see how uniform the distribution of shots is from team to team if we were to really break it down. Another factor is opponents, does goalie X play against teams with weaker finishers more often (this would help his SVPCT some).

What's important, though, is that it's pretty easy to formulate abstracts that cause problems for our belief that team defense necessarily improves a goalie's chance at having an easier set of shots to make saves on.

In fact, I could make the argument that team defense may actually make it more difficult for the goalie (I don't buy it, but you could make it). Say, for example, you have a team that excels at blocking shots. They're going to block a lot more "easy" saves than they are "hard" saves, thus increasing the difficulty of the set of the shots the goalie is making saves on. This is likely one reason you see arguments that it's easier for goalies to post high SVPCT numbers when they face lots of shots.

This is a pretty good summary, but if we do sign Vokoun or Bryz, your gonna let Bobrovsky play 30+ games after signing a goalie for 4 million plus?

I think the best route is trading for Schneider, I don't want to overpay for a goalie.

THIS.

We aren't likely to get Bryz, we'd have to move too many pieces to make it realistically work. Just for arguments sake, we'd have Hartnell and Carle, drop Carcillo, resign Leino @3.2 mil, resign Nodl @ 0.9 mil, Resign Powe @ 0.8 mil, bring up both Rinaldo and Wellwood to get to 13 forwards, resign O'Donnell @ 0.9 and bring up Gustafsson and Bartilus to get to 7 dmen AND STILL we'd only have around 4.2 mil for a goalie IF the cap goes up to 62.4 mil. Evidently Leino refused an offer of around 3 mil per year for an extension so if you plan on getting him for that or cheaper you are dreaming. If you say to let him walk then you are looking at replacing 2 guys in our top 9 and if you plan on getting someone cheaper than 3 mil then they will most likely be largely unproven so again, that's SERIOUSLY hurting our offense.

I know most people on here are in love with Bobrovsky and see no reason to go get another guy like Schneider when it's possible that Bob will be just as good or better. Maybe so, but honestly, Schneider IS ready to be "the guy" next year. He was ready THIS year but he has Luongo in front of him. Getting rid of Carter alone won't get us enough cap space to get a goalie. We WILL lose 2 or 3 major pieces from this years team if we plan on going after Bryz or Vokoun.

Personally, I'd try to make a trade with Vanc like this: To Vanc - Bobrovsky, Hartnell, + 2012 1st; to Phi - Schneider + Schroeder/Hodgson (most likely it would be Schroeder as they are looking for Hodgson to be their 3rd line, shutdown center). Bob replaces Schneider as a developing goalie for them, Hartnell jumps into their top 6, and the 1st is used to replace Schroeder. For us, Schroeder becomes our best forward prospect and jumps into our top 9. Schneider becomes our starting goalie with probably Boucher as his backup (50 games for Schneider and 30 games for Boucher). We'd look something like this:

That's about 59 mil right there. That would leave us about 3 mil for a 13th forward, 7th dman and injury call-ups providing the cap raises 2 mil as expected. We lose Hartnell and Carcillo off the current list of forwards and replace them with Schroeder and Wellwood/Rinaldo. We keep the current group of dmen. Schneider is "the man" in net for us. I can live with this.

Shuffling Bob for Schneider doesn't make sense to me. Why bother? And since I know people will say "Schneider is older," I'd like to cite Bob's mental fortitude, which is often described as his best asset. It's not like Schneider is a proven starter.

Shuffling Bob for Schneider doesn't make sense to me. Why bother? And since I know people will say "Schneider is older," I'd like to cite Bob's mental fortitude, which is often described as his best asset. It's not like Schneider is a proven starter.

Schneider is both more ready to be a #1 and he's more of a sure thing" at this point. Bob MIGHT be just as good or even better in the future, however the point of the post was to show that we are NOT going to get one of Bryz/Vokoun so we are looking at a situation that Chi tried this year with the Turco dissaster where Bob is again "the man" where he is ready for it or not. I persoanally would rather have Schneider be "the man" for us next year rather than hoping Bob turns it around. Bob looked good at times but he has A LOT to work on.

You say that one of the best attributes of Bob is his mental fortitude??? Then why was he CLEARLY burned out by the last 6 weeks of the season with only playing about 60% of the games???? I know it's more than he was used to getting but if you expect him to be "the man" then he's damned well better be ablt to play in 60 games or so each and every year. IF something were to happen and we had to rely on Bob again next year I think we'd be in much the same boat as this year.

I've watched a lot of Schneider (Vanc is my #2 team hence why I know and like their prospects too) and I definitely see him as a better long term solution than Bob.

Bob is most likely NOT ready to be a #1 next year, Schneider IS. Don't forget that we also trade then Hartnell but we replace him with a very good young player in Schroeder. Shcroeder is green but should be ready for the NHL next year. He's far and away better than any prospect currently NOT on the Flyers and that includes Eriksson, Wellwood and Gustafsson.

Tdef makes more sense as the denominator of a quotient if it's going to equate to shot difficulty. Unless the absolute worst a team could be is a 1 and the best is a 0.

Either way, it's, like you said, a little too simple for my tastes.

As said, the folks that have tried to actually quantify that stuff have produced stuff that is rife with holes. The guy over at behindthenet attempted to make an argument based on where shots were taken (simple shot chart stats) and extrapolate that into an argument about the difficulty of saves a goalie makes... which is fine, but, as said, it runs into the problem that you are lacking any information about screens, tip and deflections, etc. A shot from 50 feet out with no one between the goalie and the shooter should be a relatively easy save... that same shot with a lot of traffic can become extremely difficult.

At the end, the fact that good goalies tend to post good SVPCT numbers throughout their career regardless of how the team in front of 'em plays suggests that this whole "SVPCT is a team statistic" argument has massive holes in it. Roberto Luongo and Vokoun have each proven that they do not need strong teams in front of 'em in order to post good numbers. Luongo went from a very poor defensive team in FLA to Vancouver and we see almost no alteration in his statistical output. Vokoun went from a very solid defensive team in Nashville to FLA and his numbers improved slightly (perhaps that is the "more shots" theory in play, it could also be the fact that he was in FLA while in the midst of what are prime years for goalies).

Then you have someone like Osgood, who was always known as a guy that was simply the product of the Red Wings strong team play. He goes to two weaker teams in the Islanders and Blues and posts almost identical numbers to his career numbers in Detroit over 180 games or whatever it was.

Now, all of this points to the fact that you can, in fact, greatly reduce goals allowed by investing in skaters (and solid coaching -- even more important, IMO). That being said, if your goal is to reduce goals against, what is the most cost effective means of doing it? More money put in a goalie that you can theoretically expect a better SVPCT output from, or more money in skaters? There's clearly a balance here, but an extra 2-3M in a goalie seems like it would go a lot further in most cases than having that invested in your third pairing D... or 3rd line wing.

The other aspect of all of this is that a better goalie is more likely to help you maintain a consistent level of team play. Similar to elite pitching talent, if you have an elite goalie then that greatly reduces the variance you're expecting to deal with over the course of the season.

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Originally Posted by Beef Invictus

Shuffling Bob for Schneider doesn't make sense to me. Why bother? And since I know people will say "Schneider is older," I'd like to cite Bob's mental fortitude, which is often described as his best asset. It's not like Schneider is a proven starter.

I would have been very happy with a deal for Schneider last offseason, but I don't think it makes sense to give up the necessary goods for him with Bob in place... unless the primary piece in the deal IS Bob.

I think a lot of you guys are dreaming if you think Vokoun is going for anything less than 5+ mil. He's consistently been an elite goaltender in Florida and he's going to be looking for big money as this could be his last fat contract.

In my opinion Bob is the future of this team and the Flyers should be looking for a veteran to play 35-45 games on a one or two year deal.

Realistically and this is going to get me some heat, I'd look into someone like Khabibulin. A vet Russian goalie who's been everywhere, done everything, and backstopped a Stanley Cup team. Plus I'd imagine he could be picked up on the cheap from Edmonton. He'd be a great 1B for Bob assuming he's a good locker room guy.

And taking a quick glance there's a few prominent vet goalies hitting the market that could play this role. Giguere, Roloson, Nabokov, and Theodore most notably.

Where is this fat contract going to come from? I'm not saying he isn't going to get decent money, but the goalie market has plummeted contractually, and it isn't simply a byproduct of the value that's been on the market. It's also a byproduct of the fact that the position on roster spots has ossified contractually, leaving goalies with little to no ability to create competition for their services. Essentially Bryz and Vokoun are the two guys this year, and they're quite similar in what you can expect from 'em (short term).

So for teams bidding for their services, they can see who will bite for the best contract (from the team's perspective) and land that guy leaving the other guy to whomever is left... really, there's only three teams that really make sense to land those two guys (TB, PHI, and COL).

So you want to give up other young players (we don't have much coming along the pipe) to acquire Schneider, who, if he works out, will block Bob?

If the decision is that Schneider is a better option than Bob long-term, and that a deal makes sense for him... it makes almost no sense to not include Bob as part of the deal.

I think it does come down to the "win now" thing. If you think a goalie, who is 3 years older then your current starter is a sure thing #1 (which Schneider hasnt proven yet) then I guess you go for it. Bob is 3 years younger and has played more games than Schneider. I do think its a kinda of waste to give up on him, after one season, where Bob actually looked pretty good for a rookie. This is all because the other guy has..um... more experience in the league years wise. Schneider's rookie season, in the few games he played, he was downright horrible. Other then the hype some people give him, Schneider hasnt shown he is a surefire starter, anymore than Bob has.